DISNEY / PIXAR'WALL*E' turns on the charm in the newest film from the folks at Pixar Animation Studios.

Aside from assorted clicks, whirls and beeps, WALL*E doesn't say a whole lot, but the Disney/Pixar film named after him speaks volumes about the reliable talent at Pixar Animation Studios.

In a summer movie season filled with more disappointments than gems, it turns out this is the droid we're looking for.

Not only is "WALL*E" a dazzling visual achievement, with its photo-realistic re-creation of a garbage-strewn Earth abandoned by its human stewards, but it's also a magnificent bit of storytelling. Boasting the heart of Charlie Chaplin, the polish of "Ratatouille" and the rust-bucket charm of R2-D2, the film is a modern masterpiece, a delightful love story/cautionary tale/sci-fi adventure that may be the animation studio's finest effort yet.

It's also easily among the best movies released so far this year, a nice payoff for a project that, by virtue of its sheer originality, had to be considered a risk by studio suits.

If there's one thing "WALL*E" is not it's formulaic. Set 700 years in the future, the sometimes-melancholy story centers on a diminutive robot, equal parts cuteness and curiosity programmed to clean the mess left behind by, well, us.

Being a robot, WALL*E communicates almost exclusively through blips and beeps, and so the first half of the film includes almost no English dialogue, functioning essentially -- and magnificently -- as a futuristic silent film.

It's a bold approach, but director Andrew Stanton (2003's "Finding Nemo") and company manage to instill a wonderful sense of emotion and character in lonely little WALL*E. (With a not-insignificant assist from a brilliantly old-school soundtrack, highlighted by Louis Armstrong's rendition of "La Vie en Rose.")

Not that it's all nuance. Like the Buster Keaton and Chaplin films that inspired it, "WALL*E" is chock-full of the kind of physical humor that Hollywood has mostly abandoned in recent decades. When a panicked WALL*E, for example, takes a header into a pile of grocery carts, it's just plain funny.

And when he falls head over treads for a sexy, modern she-robot -- a bad mama jamma by the name of Eve -- we're already so in love with the sweet little guy that it's hard not to root for him to get the girl.

The story has satisfying depth, offering messages that are sure to find resonance. Some of those messages are subtle, others not so much, but all steer reasonably clear of soap boxes.

The animators behind "WALL*E" also manage to turn the film's biggest challenge -- the absence of humans -- into an asset. After all, audiences know exactly what Earthlings look like. That's why creating photo-realistic animated people -- getting the hands, faces and mouth movements just right -- is so difficult. (Case in point: Last year's "Beowulf.")

What the Pixar folks can do is create photo-realistic synthetic surfaces, such as tin cans, plastic "sporks" -- and forlorn robots.

When humans do finally appear, they're cartoony -- much in the style of those in "The Incredibles, " just far flabbier -- which feels incongruous given the fine-brush rendering of the film's silicon-based characters.

Still, it's hard to hold that against the ninth full-length animated feature from the revolutionaries at Pixar. Smart money says it'll be their ninth consecutive hit, an instant animated classic and -- and as soon as box-office receipts make it clear that people are going to love him -- a new attraction at Walt Disney World.

And people will love "WALL*E."

He had me at "blip."

MOVIE NOTES

Emptying the critic's notebook on "WALL*E":

Take 1: The bleeps-and-blips-heavy "voice" of robot WALL*E is provided by Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, who did the same for R2-D2 in the "Star Wars" films.

Take 3: The art-history-flavored closing credits are as sit-throughable as they come, including a nod to impressionists, to 8-bit computer graphics, and to everything in between.

Take 4: Paying tribute to the film's sci-fi inspirations, "Alien" actor Sigourney Weaver -- who dealt with an overzealous onboard computer in that sci-fi classic -- provides the voice for the ship's computer in "WALL*E."

Take 5: In-house, Pixar animators referred to WALL*E's cockroach friend as "Hal, " a dual tribute to legendary comedy director Hal Roach and the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Take 6: As always, Pixar's "good-luck charm, " John Ratzenberger, voices a role in "WALL*E, " that of a newly awakened human named, appropriately, John.

Take 7: Baton Rouge native Ralph Eggleston was production designer on the film.